leave me with only memories of you
by fabricated fantasies
Summary: "I know you want to kiss me." /Roxanne falls for the last girl she should.


**a/n **my first roxanne/dominique! I absolutely adore these two, though - they are among my favourites for the nextgen.

written for the _I Kissed A Girl Competition_ on the HPFC

dedicated to Blue, who is always beautiful and lovely - I miss you, gorgeous!

warnings: minor swearing, mentions of underage sex

* * *

If there's anything you would say to your former self, it's this: don't fall for her. Don't follow her with your eyes whenever she walks in the room. Don't linger too long in the perfunctory hugs she bestows on you in front of the family because she has to. Don't ask her opinion on your wardrobe. Don't hope desperately that you'll get into Slytherin because she's there and you look up to her with every fibre of your being. Don't kiss her - don't even think about kissing her.

And most of all - always, always remember that she is your cousin, and she is ruthless.

* * *

You're seventeen when your cousin drags you to a party, your hair wild with rampant curls that fall in front of your made-up eyes whenever you move. You have no idea how you ended up sitting on the ground with some of the most popular people in the school, ignoring the fact that you're related to at least two and you drank more than you wanted to, but when someone puts a bottle in your hand and tells you to spin, you can do nothing but comply.

Your heart jumps as it twirls around the circle, and you know that there's only one person you want it to land on, even if you haven't managed to say the words aloud yet. She looks up, a bright smile dancing on her strawberry coloured lips as the bottle comes to a stop in front of her, and you can't breathe as you imagine being able to know if they taste like they look.

"Go on, kiss her," one of your housemates nudges you when you don't move, transfixed by the shape of her lips as she mouths something to you with a flinty look in her eyes, though you have no idea what she's trying to say.

"Do it, babes," a deep voice urges, and you know without looking that her boyfriend - because of course she has one - has wound his arms around her waist and pulled her into his lap, ignoring her smile which has quickly turned razor-edged. Dominique is not known for her sweetness. "It'd be hot."

"I'm her cousin, idiot - we'll find another girl to bring to bed with us, hmm," she tells him, a silver fingernail tapping his cheek patronisingly. Her nails are torn to the quick, the only sign of imperfection you have ever seen on her, and you are sure that if she had any other flaws you would have noticed them by now.

"You're perfect," he tells her, kissing her deeply, and you've never wanted to be someone else more as you rush from the room, unable to listen any longer.

You're almost to the library before you realise that a) it's after curfew; and b) someone's following you, and it's the latter that makes you stop and retreat into an alcove, which you realise is a mistake as soon as you've done it. You keep your eyes on the ground and force yourself not to breathe too hard, because maybe you can avoid the patrol of Prefects if you stay quiet and still enough.

It's a shock when Dominique pushes the curtain aside, her red lips dark in the dim light of the corridor, and you can see that her neckline has fallen down, far past what it was when you arrived at the party in the common room earlier that night, exposing the tops of her breasts that you can't keep your eyes of, as perverted as it makes you feel.

"I know you want to kiss me," she says without preamble, her words pointed and her eyes glittering like stars, though she's more like a snake, with her underhanded words and sly looks and the feeling she gives you like you're falling into her trap.

"What?" you reply, blank and shocked. You never thought she'd say the words aloud, despite her sidelong looks and furtive comments that have followed you over the years.

"Well - what are you waiting for? Kiss me, cousin dearest," she mocks, her lips twisted in a blood red smirk and her perfectly shaped eyebrows tilted in a way that screams seduction and trickery, but you lean unconsciously forward.

"Y-you mean it?" you ask, and hate yourself for fucking up in front of the girl you've worshipped since you could talk. Never mind that you were (are) the quiet one, unassuming and invisibility streaming out of your pores, while she was quick wit and sly smiles and a parade of friends (and later lovers) walking in and out of a revolving door - and really, that's what you like(d) about her.

"Do I ever say anything I don't mean?" she replies quickly, her tone coy as she steps closer to you.

_Yes_, you think, but don't say. _Always_, you whisper in the confines of your mind where not even she can see, and step forward. Your arms slide instinctively around her waist as your eyes focus on her lips, and there's no time to think that you've never done this before as she forces her lips onto yours. It's rough, cold and almost calculating, and certainly never what you had imagined for your first kiss, though you had always wanted it to be her.

(And isn't that a scary thought, that wishes do come true?)

* * *

It's weeks before you talk again, which is almost impressive, as you live in the same dorm, but you find yourself watching every movement you make around her, as if you can prove that you are worth her kisses. It's always been like that with her, though - trying to keep your flaws hidden, as though that will make her love you any more.

"Meet me behind the greenhouses in three minutes," she whispers as she passes you in the corridors one morning, and there's a little bit of poetry in the fact that you're standing right next to where you first kissed. You think so, anyway, but you don't think about it too much as you rush down to the greenhouses. You don't want to risk anything.

You're forty seconds early - it's an exact measurement; you counted - and you smile as she comes around the corner, the edges of your lips tilting up as you take in her near-flawless features. She doesn't respond, staying quiet until she reaches you.

"So, uh - what do y-" you start, but she ignores you, pulling you into a kiss before you even have time to breathe again, and it's better than the last time, because you're sober and she's perfect and you feel like there should be orchestra's playing or birds singing somewhere to commemorate this.

You wonder if you should stop her, if you should ask her what's going on, but she's _kissing you_, and who cares if she's your cousin and a girl and you're unpopular, because she's holding onto your hips so tight that there's already a bruise forming, but you can't find it in yourself to care as you fall into surrender.

* * *

It takes six weeks for it to feel like routine, sneaking out to the greenhouses and the Room of Requirement and the flooded bathroom on the third floor and the empty classroom on the fifth, and it doesn't take long for you to think that she is yours. She isn't, she isn't, no matter how much you want to think that maybe she could be, because you're painfully aware that your feeling are mostly one sided, and no one has the right to expect anything out of Dominique Weasley anyway. You are allowed to sneak kisses, but there can never be anything like friendship between you - she has an image, and you do not.

It takes months for the message to sink in.

"Why won't you talk to me?" you say, catching her by the elbow as she struts along the corridor on her way to class, her entourage (and Jenna, who is actually sweet and kind, and is forever separate from the insipid girls who follow your cousin) strangely absent.

"In case you haven't noticed, I'm not publicly on good terms with any of my family, excepting Albus," she replies with a high laugh that turns hearts and heads, but you can hear the heartbreak underneath. You've heard her nightmares as she lays in bed beside her, her frozen toes pressing into your leg as she mutters about everyone leaving her behind. But still, you ignore it; you will not allow her to push you away.

"But still, I'm a Slytherin too. It wouldn't be that unusual for you to talk to me," you point out, and try not to feel too hurt as she pulls her arm out of your grasp.

"Roxanne." Her whisper is a harsh whip flicking against your skin, but years of observing and overhearing pointed comments meant to barb have rendered you able to ignore her tone. _She loves you, _you remind yourself, and hope to all the gods that it's true.

"Dominique," you say pointedly - you are a Slytherin too, remember - tilting your chin to look into her eyes. You have both stopped now, and it's a testament to the awe they hold her in that no one jostles them as they move past. "We - you know," your voice drops to a whisper. "You can't just erase that and ignore me."

"_We _are not anything. We can't be in a public relationship, you know that," she reminds you, her voice as low as yours. "And stop looking like you want to kiss me. You're kind of obvious."

"Can I help that I always want to kiss you?" you dare to say, and her eyes flicker like she didn't expect you to say that at all. You suspect that she kind of likes it, being unable to predict you.

"Who's kissing who?" a booming voice sounds, and you inwardly grimace as Anthony comes up behind the two of you and slings an arm around Dominique's shoulders. You just hope that your anger isn't showing on your face.

"Oh, we were just talking about your brother, actually - apparently he broke up with Lily again, and now that Brianna girl is after him again, the twit. Roxanne was just saying that they should just kiss and make up already, since it's obvious that the saga of Lily and Jake will never end. We'll be old and grey and ugly, and they'll still break up every Tuesday, like clockwork,"  
she tells him with a butterfly laugh, delicate and pretty and short-lived, and if you weren't too busy seething that Anthony you'd be impressed at how quickly she's come up with their cover story. It isn't like it's not true, though - you distinctly remember Lily telling you that she and her boyfriend break up so often solely for drama, not because anything is ever actually wrong with their relationship. It only reinforces your belief that the Potter side of the family is completely bonkers.

"I'll see you later," you say, hating every moment that you spend in their collective presence, and it hurts that she doesn't acknowledge your departure beyond touching her fingertips to yours behind her boyfriend's back.

* * *

It's Christmas before you know it, and you've spent almost a year on this girl without being much of anything, but it's hard to remember that when she's tangled up in fairy lights on your bed, her hair loose and draped across your blankets. You've never loved her more than this.

"Roxanne! Untangle me from this, would you," she orders, but there's a sparkle in her eyes that wasn't there before, and you would really like to think that you were the one to put it there.

"Sorry - Alice told me she was going to give me some decorations to take to my new apartment," you tell her, slipping your hands from behind her back and beginning to unravel the strings of glimmering snowflakes. You hadn't expected this when you and Dominique stumbled into your bedroom at your parents' house three minutes earlier, your lips fused together and her skirt half around her waist. You've never been gladder that your parents work long hours.

"That shouldn't be my problem, Roxanne," she says archly, "and tell your best friend that she needs to think before she does things. My parents are sure to ask questions if I come home all bruised, and-"

"Shh," you whisper, laughter bubbling through your throat before you can stop it, though you're not sure you would if you could. She just looks so adorable when she's angry, though you would never tell her that, nor incite her on purpose - well, maybe just a little.

"Don't tell me to shush, Roxanne, I don-"

"I'm going to kiss you now," you interrupt her, and watch her blink confusedly, unused to anyone daring to stop the ice queen of Hogwarts mid-rant.

"Well, get on with it," she tells you impatiently, and you kiss her like she is the only thing that keeps you breathing.

* * *

"I love you," you say into the darkness as you lie in bed beside her, her hand clasped in yours as if it's meant to be there, though it isn't, it isn't, and you know that, but it's easy to pretend as you listen to her breathing shallow and her heartbeat calm.

"You can't," she tells you, her voice icy cold and matter of fact as she wrenches her hand away, and if there's a little bit of hope in her voice you're probably imagining it.

You clench your fingers into your now empty palm, but say nothing. You won't talk about it again.

* * *

"Stay with me," you say impulsively one night after she's snuck into your bedroom, continuing to run your hands through her hair, twisting strands and admiring the way they glint in the soft light coming from the lamp beside your bed.

"What?" she asks, and you don't even think to be cautious, to worry about what she's going to say or do next, because you've gotten used to being able to read her as easily as a book.

"Not forever," you continue blithely, though your hand has stilled in her hair. "Just stay with me this summer, please? You're over here most days anyway, and you know your parents wouldn't mind."

"I'm sorry - it's just, I lo- " you can't bring that up again, "like spending time with you, and I wanted us to be able to spend the summer together without sneaking around, and-"

"Who do you think we _are_, Roxanne? _What_ do you think we are? We're nothing, you're not - I won't fall in love with you, we don't get that kind of happy ending, understand? I can't, I-" her voice breaks and so does your heart; not for you, but for her, so restricted by the path of her own making that she can't see anything else.

"I know, Dominique. We can't be anything," you agree, but you can't keep the deadened tone from your voice, because however much you pity her, you love her more.

"Exactly," she says, her voice clear and high and cold again, and you barely hear her muttered words to you as she gets up and walks away without a second glance.

("You'll know when to open this," she had said, and you don't know what that means, but the letter remains in your pocket forever after.)

* * *

She runs away to Mexico the day after her eighteenth birthday and leaves nothing behind except you.

* * *

You write her letters of anything that comes to mind, letters that will never see the light but make you feel better to write anyway -

"It's Friday, and I love you", you write, your quill pressed too hard into the parchment so it bleeds black, ink running from the nib to taint your dark skin as if you're supposed to care about it. There's no need to keep up appearances, now that she's gone. You feel as if there is no one judging you, no one to be perfect for, because you only ever wanted to be perfect for her and ink stains mean nothing to you now.

"It's Tuesday, and I wish you were here", you whisper to yourself like your thoughts are a secret as you scrawl them onto the page. You crumple the parchment into a ball and watch the rain pull it out of the window, spiralling downwards like a broken bird as you follow its descent with your eyes, and you hear Alice (who visits every day without you inviting her) asking whether you're okay as if you should care.

"I'm fine," you say, but the words are hollow and your heart is numb, and love was never supposed to feel like this.

"No, you're not," she tells you, her arm slipping around your shoulders to pull you closer. You wonder when you last did this, the two of you; it must have been long before Dominique - before Dominique. That's the end of your description of what lay before these last two years

"I'm in love with her," you choke out, your hands reaching up to grasp her arms, clinging to her so that she has no choice but to stay with you. You need her.

"I know," she says, and you see in her eyes all the moments where your pining eyes have been far too obvious, bleeding guilt and pain and love that you were never meant to hold this close to you.

* * *

"She told me to tell you to open the letter," Alice tells you abruptly one morning on her usual visit, and you look up from the tea you were making, almost tipping the cup over in your shock. It says something about your frame of mind that there is no need to ask who 'she' is.

"You saw her?" you ask, your voice soft and full of betrayal, because you thought you could heal without having to hear about her again, and just talking about her makes your heart feel like it's ripping into shreds.

"Roxanne," she hesitates, ignoring your question, though it wasn't really one that demanded an answer. "I don't know what she wrote, but - you're doing amazingly. You have your own apartment, you have a job, and you haven't talked about her since -" she cuts herself off; you don't ever talk about your last relapse, however close the previous one might have been. "Just, don't let her get to you like that again. That's all," she says quietly, and you barely notice as she walks out the door, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

(It's been two years since you've seen her, and you're still almost as lost as you've ever been.)

* * *

It takes a month to gather the courage to open the letter, though you have carried it with you ever since she gave it to you. Peeling back the seal that holds the ends in place, you unravel the crinkled parchment, and you take a moment to wish for the heartfelt declarations that you have always longed to see - paragraphs of devotion written in her spider-like scrawl, words you had always held out hope for but never received.

You glance down at the page.

_I love you_, it says. Three words that you always wanted to hear from her. Three words, eight letters. They have become meaningless to you over time, after saying them and hearing only silence and scorn back. _I love you_, you read it again. And again. And again.

It's somewhere after the fourteenth time that you owl her to come over.

She arrives at your doorstep scarcely fifteen minutes later, and once this would have only made you love her harder, but now Alice's words seem scorched into your head. _Don't let her get to you like that again_.

"Did you mean it?" you ask the moment she appears; she nods swiftly, a movement so minute that you barely catch the movement. "Say it," you breathe, your voice harsh like splintered ice in deepest winter, and you don't know where this callousness is coming from, but you know you need to hear her say the words.

"I love you," she says, her voice low and hard and _desperate_, and you want so badly to believe her that it hurts.

"I'm sorry." The words tumble out of your mouth before you can even try to snatch them back, but you dig your (perfectly immaculate) fingernails into the palm of your hand and avoid looking her in the eyes as you step back inside your apartment and close the door.

(Later, you'll watch her love burn to cinders in your fireplace, and you'll write waste reams of paper on letters that you'll never send, but it's enough for now to know that you haven't been destroyed by her.)

"I love you," you hear her whisper as you slide down to leant against your front door, and you pretend that you never heard anything at all.

* * *

Please review, and let me know what you think!


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